Our Predicament, an update on the current situation

So we are still in Seu D'urgell. We have a week of rest before we start our training in Augsburg. This week has been tough, energy levels have been low.
We are in a rather tricky situation now. We have no news on the car, its currently at the mechanics. There fore we dont know how long it will take to get fixed, how much and if it will be able to be fixed for a resonable price. When we left the car, we only took bare essentials. Toothbrush, a change of clothes and kayaking equipment. The rest of our things are in the car, two and a half hours away.
We have no transport, so are currently scouting out a ride to Andorra where we can hopefully get to Perpignan or ideally finding a ride to Perpignan. We have decided to go and stay there for a few days, then its not too far from the car and is a bigger city so we can sort things out a bit more easily.
We want to get out of Spain and sort the car ASAP so we can get back to Augsburg.
If we cant get the car fixed for a resonable price in a resonable time frame, we will have to fly back to Germany. All I want to do right now is get back to Augsburg and settle down. We havnt been in the same place for more than a week for im not sure how long. Im optimistic that it will all work out, it usueally does. Its been a great week in Seu and we are sooooo glad we came. We werent able to race the Spanish champs, there were too many entries. We have been watching and learning from the Spanish however and its been good.
Well, will update when we know more.

Busking on the streets of Spain

Yesterday, I seized the opportunity to busk for an hour in the town square in La Seu. Pretty scary stuff, but I really wanted to try it. Luckily, there werent too many people there, and another bonus is that because so few people speak english, it didnt matter if I forgot the words to the songs, I just made them up. Anyway, it wasnt a lucrative hour, more an experience as I walked away with about $5. Good times.

Spain

I am Ranked 14th. ICF WORLD RANKING LIST 2009 (click here)

Slalom on sky sport

Subject: Slalom World Cups

Slalom World Cups are on sky....

Sky sport 2 or 3 Channels 31 or 32

Wed 15th Jul 7pm SS2

Thurs 16 Jul 2.30 pm SS3

Sun 18 Jul 8.30 am SS2

Sun 18 Jul 6pm SS3

Mon 20 Jul 3pm SS3

Wed 22 Jul 7pm SS2

Some Photos from the trip

Germany to Spain and an absolute nightmare!

We set off from Augsburg at 9pm Sunday night after a tiring day of sun and watching a semi final I desperately wished I was in. We drove for about 4 hours, pulled over and slept in the car, setting off early the next day. The trip was going well, we were making good progress on our 15hour drive, we had excellent music, excited about the camp and about the build up to the worlds. It didnt take long for the high spirits to hit an all time low when the clutch on the escort decided to break about two hours from our destination. We ended up outside a random bakery just off the motorway outside the small town of Illes in France. The lady there spoke a little english which was very useful as nobody else did. A local took me to the garage where we got somebody to look at the car, he said "kaput". A daunting word that was very much understood.
So we were stuck in a non english speaking town, the car could not be fixed, we could not catch a bus, or hire a car and we werent going to drive all this way and miss the first session of the training camp at 9am the next morning. There was only one more option. Try to hitchike there with two 3.5m kayaks, our paddles, and essential items.
In general, I do not believe in luck I believe that you make your own luck. However in this situation I will say that luck was on our side as a blue transit van pulled up to get bread. We thought if we could get to Andorra, we could possibly get somebody to pick us up and take us to Seu. They were a father and son and as I asked, they were indeed on their way to Andorra (conveniently) they were a bit hesitant about giving us a ride as one of us had to ride on the floor in the back we reassured them if there was an accident we would jump out of the back and they agreed to give us a ride.
We left the car on the side of the road and set off. To cut a long, epic and tiring story short, they ended up dropping us off outside our accomodation in La Seu. Communicated with the owner who speaks no english and we slept here last night to make it to our session this morning. Louise and I are still recovering from the stress of it all, from the lack of sleep and have yet to sort out what to do with the car. I hope to race the spanish Nationals this weekend and then retire to a few days rest before my build up to the worlds. Despite the unfortunate circumstances, I am glad we came to the training camp. There arent many people in our training slot so its not too busy and it is reassuring paddling on the course again.


I found this article quite amusing- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10583994

Augsburg world cup

It seems to be a tradition i've set in place to constantly get fifty second penalties in Augsburg. Yesterday was no exception. As I left the starting blocks, I was on a great run, fast in the first up and the tricky stagger following it. I got to gate five on what is called the 'zoom flume'. A fast drop where all the water gets pushed to the right. As I had no coach and little support, I walked through the move, setting my lines. Alas, I should have given more thought to the line through the drop and consequently missed gate five on both runs. Im sick of not having a coach and always turning up to races and walking the course alone whilst all the other teams are coached and have everything done for them. Im not complaining, its just entirely frusterating sometimes, everything is so much harder. When the first run is over, naturally it is good to talk to somebody about it, walk the course again, reflecting on what was good, what was bad and ultimately refining mistakes to lead to a faster second run. I walk the course by myself again, try to remember and work out what went wrong, go and sit to watch other paddlers for a while and then warm up for my second run. No advice, no feedback. Nothing. I know that I am now fast enough to be able to make every semi final and next year I will be doing even better. Yesterday I felt comfortable on the water. I had a spin out at the bottom, due also to not realising the correct line and lost a lot of time. I am going to be training hard now for the worlds, realising my potential and the fact that racing in Europe can be at times pretty lonely and frusterating.

Live results feed, Augsburg world cup (click here)

Ich bin in Augsburg. Das ist sehr gut

I have had a good week of training in Augsburg this week. The race starts tomorrow (Friday) with qualification for all classes, then semi finals and finals for c1s and k1w are on Sunday. We have met up with the juniors again and im sure they are also looking forward to the race. Information for the race can be found at this site http://www.kanu-schwaben-augsburg.de/
Not sure where results are but will update them asap after the race.
Weather is cooler but its good.